If the Tao, and by extension is in unlimited supply, why is Philosophical Taoism focused on conserving vitality and the third school focused on increasing vitality?
"The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up. It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities." - Tao Te Ching - The World's Wisdom, p. 47 |
"Philosophical Taoists try to conserve their te by expending it efficiently, whereas "vitality" Taoists work to increase its available supply."
- The World's Religions, p. 200 |
How might a society's increasing awareness of an inner self, separate from an outer self, affect other aspects of a nation, like the economy or literature, the arts, education, and religion?
"Taoism was a dawning fascination in China with the inner as opposed to the outer self. Children do not separate these two sides of their being, and neither did early peoples. Yogic or meditational Taoism arose as the advancing self-consciousness of the Chinese brought subjective experience to full view."
- The World's Religions, p. 202
- The World's Religions, p. 202
How does the concept of wu wei contrast with Western perspective?
"Wu wei is the supreme action, the precious suppleness, simplicity, and freedom that flows from us, rather through us, when our private egos and conscious efforts yield to a power not their own."
- The World's Religions, p. 208
- The World's Religions, p. 208
What does the fact that of the three Taoist schools, Religious Taoism was considered Taoism for the masses reveal about early Chinese socio-political hierarchies?
"Reflection and health programs take time, and the average Chinese lacked that commodity."
"The Taoist priesthood made cosmic life-power available for ordinary villagers."
- The World's Religions, p. 205
"The Taoist priesthood made cosmic life-power available for ordinary villagers."
- The World's Religions, p. 205
How can the concept of yin/yang be applied to today's national and global events? How did it come to be that Taoism's take on good vs evil is so different from the perspective of Abrahamic religions?
"In the Taoist perspective even good and evil are not head-on opposites. The West has tended to dichotomize the two, bt Taoists are less categorical."
"Each [of the halves] invades the other's hemisphere and takes up its abode in the deepest recess of its partner's doman...In the context of that wholeness, the opposites appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process for each turns incessantly into its opposite, exchanging places with it."
- The World's Wisdom, p. 215
"Each [of the halves] invades the other's hemisphere and takes up its abode in the deepest recess of its partner's doman...In the context of that wholeness, the opposites appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process for each turns incessantly into its opposite, exchanging places with it."
- The World's Wisdom, p. 215